IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v15y2025i2p21582440251342086.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pre-Tax Deduction Policy for Employee Education Expenses and Corporate Digital Transformation: Evidence From China

Author

Listed:
  • Huiqiang Ni
  • Zhen Yang
  • Wenlong Liu
  • Jianxia Cui

Abstract

The digital economy is a cornerstone of high-quality development and sustainability. This study employs a difference-in-differences approach to investigate how tax incentives, specifically those induced by the pre-tax deduction of employee education expenses, influence corporate digital transformation. We find that increasing the pre-tax deduction ratio for employee education expenses significantly promotes corporate digital transformation, with the effect being more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, start-ups, declining firms, companies with higher tax burdens, and firms facing severe financing constraints. Mechanism tests reveal that the policy primarily drives corporate digital transformation through three core channels: alleviating financing constraints, upgrading human capital, and fostering innovation-driven initiatives. These findings provide valuable policy insights for deepening supply-side structural reforms and achieving high-quality economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Huiqiang Ni & Zhen Yang & Wenlong Liu & Jianxia Cui, 2025. "Pre-Tax Deduction Policy for Employee Education Expenses and Corporate Digital Transformation: Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(2), pages 21582440251, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:2:p:21582440251342086
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440251342086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251342086
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440251342086?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:2:p:21582440251342086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.